The Arizona State University Alumni Association will honor pioneering faculty members and alumni at its annual Founders’ Day Awards Dinner, slated for 7 p.m., Feb. 29 at the Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa, 2400 E. Missouri Ave., Phoenix.
The award ceremony has been a signature event for the university for decades, and honors individuals who exemplify the spirit of the founders of the Territorial Normal School of Arizona, ASU’s predecessor institution, which received its charter from the Thirteenth Territorial Legislature on March 7, 1885.
The following individuals will be honored by the Alumni Association at the Founders’ Day event:
Alumni Achievement Award – Honoree: Randall McDaniel ’02 B.S.
Randall McDaniel is being honored for his contributions as an athlete, an educator and a community leader.
McDaniel’s athletic prowess became evident early in his life. He was a three-year varsity football and basketball starter at Agua Fria High School in Avondale, Ariz. At ASU, he played on the Sun Devils offensive line and was named a First Team All-America pick in 1986 and 1987. He was later named to ASU’s All-Century Team and inducted into the university’s Sports Hall of Fame, as well as the Arizona State Football Ring of Honor.
McDaniel spent 14 years in the National Football League, playing for the Minnesota Vikings and for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He earned a record-setting 12 consecutive Pro Bowl selections and has been inducted into the National Football Foundation’s College Hall of Fame and the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
McDaniel retired from professional football in 2001 and immediately began working full-time as a basic skills instructor in Robbinsdale, Minn., area schools. He currently works in a similar capacity in second grade special education in the Westonka (Minn.) Public Schools.
His volunteer efforts include operating Team McDaniel, a middle-school program that empowers students to make a difference in their communities through volunteerism.
Alumni Achievement Award – Honoree: Stephen Teglas ’89 B.S.
Stephen Teglas is being honored for his visionary work with The Walt Disney Co. and his contributions to a pioneering partnership between the company and ASU.
Teglas joined the Disney Store in 1993. He became vice president/general manager of Fashion & Home of Disney Consumer Products, North America, in 2008. In this role, Teglas has pioneered strategy relating to Disney’s licensed products aimed at the “tween” (9- to 12-year-olds) demographic, including the emphasis on fashion as a major component of the brand for young female consumers.
An avid Sun Devil, Teglas has been instrumental in building a relationship between Disney and ASU. He shaped a joint trademark licensing arrangement that will result in a variety of merchandise that will feature Sparky with Mickey Mouse and other Disney characters. He also has been involved in ASU’s InnovationSpace program, creating a Disney sponsorship in which students from design, engineering and business work with Disney representatives to develop product and service concepts for children in the areas of health and sustainability.
Philanthropists of the Year Award – Honorees: Gary and Jeanne Herberger ’89 B.A., ’95 M.A., ’00 Ph.D.
Jeanne and Gary Herberger epitomize the art — and heart — of philanthropy. Individually and together, the couple has contributed nearly $28 million to the development of Arizona State University over the past 30 years. Most recently, the couple’s generosity established the Young Scholars Academy for gifted children at the West campus of ASU.
Jeanne, a three-time alumna of ASU’s Hugh Downs School of Human Communication, is an avid arts supporter and advocate. She served on the most recent dean-selection panel at the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts and is a member of the Dean’s Leadership Cabinet, which provides strategic planning and advising. She is a founding Women & Philanthropy investor at the ASU Foundation for A New American University.
Gary comes from a legacy of support for ASU, where he and his family have made more than 100 investments benefitting scholarships and programs in the colleges of the arts, business, public programs and design.
He is a long-standing supporter of the ASU College of Design, now named the Design School within ASU’s Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, and has been a strong advocate and advisor for the creation of ASU’s Master of Real Estate Development program.
Faculty Achievement Awards
Faculty Achievement Teaching Award – Honoree: Karen Bruhn, Honors Faculty Fellow and principal lecturer, Barrett, the Honors College at ASU
Karen Bruhn is being honored for her work as an Honors Faculty Fellow and principal lecturer at Barrett, the Honors College at ASU. Bruhn, who currently chairs the Barrett faculty, has been recognized by students, faculty, and administrators alike as an excellent teacher, an active and engaged scholar, and an exceptionally able administrator.
The Human Event, a yearlong reading and writing intensive interdisciplinary seminar, is one of Bruhn’s primary teaching assignments. Her students have praised her enthusiasm, her expertise and her availability outside the classroom. She also teaches a number of upper-division seminars, both on ASU’s Tempe campus and in the Barrett Summer Study Abroad program. She is on the graduate faculty for both the History and the Religious Studies departments, and she is an affiliate faculty for the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.
She has led a “World Religions for Teens” class at Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, and also has led seminars for the ASU Foundation Presidents’ Community Enrichment Program, which connects metropolitan Phoenix and other Arizona communities to ASU’s visionary scholars.
Faculty Achievement Research Award – Honoree: Wayne Frasch, professor, School of Life Sciences, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Wayne Frasch, a professor in the School of Life Sciences within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, is being honored for his research, which resides at the interface between basic research and innovative mission-driven investigation into the inner workings of cells, molecules and DNA.
The core of Frasch’s basic research focuses on how molecular “motors” use cellular energy to drive the rotary motion of protein complexes. To accomplish this, he has developed novel approaches to view and measure the rotation of single molecules of these motors by microscopy. His work into biosensing has ramifications that stretch into medicine and anti-terrorism activities. A recent extension of his research has led him into the transdisciplinary field of DNA computing, a field that uses the hereditary material present in most forms of life as a model for computation. This approach has the potential to revolutionize the field of massive parallel computing, as it opens the door to solve problems that have proven vexing for standard silicon-based computers.
Frasch has published more than 70 papers and has obtained five patents related to his work, with another five patents pending. His papers have been cited more than 1,000 times by other researchers, and he is asked frequently to speak on his research at seminars and research workshops.
Faculty Achievement Service Award – Honoree: Joe Lockard, associate professor, Department of English, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Joe Lockard, an associate professor in the Department of English within ASU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, is being honored for his development of the Prison English Project.
The Prison English Project has a number of components, including an internship program for undergraduate students, who act as online teachers of creative writing for inmates at the Penitentiary of New Mexico. The project also supports an internship for graduate students, who teach in-person classes in Shakespeare, American literature and creative writing to minimum-security prisoners at the state prison in Florence, Ariz.
Beyond prison literature and education, Lockard’s scholarly interests include anti-slavery literature and digital humanities. In 2003, he established the Antislavery Literature Project to provide access to a range of anti-slavery literature. In 2009, he created Project Yao, a digital humanities project to study literary translation between China and the United States.
Staff Achievement Award – Honoree: Anna Wales
Anna Wales, a senior student engagement coordinator at ASU’s Polytechnic campus, is being honored for her commitment to the university and its students, her enthusiastic display of Sun Devil pride, and her service to the university and the Valley community.
Wales, who joined ASU in 1994, is currently employed by the College of Technology and Innovation. She is considered by those she has worked with as a “goodwill ambassador” for the university.
Wales’ pride in the university is legendary, and she has volunteered for many outside-of-work ASU projects, including leadership roles on the University Staff Council and the Commission on the Status of Women. She currently serves as a Sun Devil Spirit Captain.
Tickets to the Founders’ Day event are $130 for Alumni Association members and $175 for nonmembers. Table and corporate sponsorship opportunities are available. For additional information about Founders’ Day, or to RSVP, visit http://alumni.asu.edu/events/founders-day.
